# How to read a tiledb folder without write permission
**URL:** https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194
**Category:** Uncategorized
**Created:** [June 9, 2020, 10:26pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194 "2020-06-09T22:26:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mikejiang](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/mikejiang)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2020, 10:26pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194/1 "2020-06-09T22:26:07Z")
I am running into file lock error
`[TileDB::IO] Error: Cannot open filelock '/tmp/Rtmpymp9pr/file751663dcef39/CytoTrol_CytoTrol_1.fcs.tile/params/__lock.tdb'; Permission denied`
The reason is the tiledb directory I am trying to read is created by another person and I only have readonly permission on that by default.
I am currently on linux posix.
My question is if tiledb always requires write permission on the file in order to read its content.
And I am aware of [https://github.com/TileDB-Inc/TileDB/issues/1260](https://github.com/TileDB-Inc/TileDB/issues/1260). But wonder if it is generally recommended to disable the lock even when I just want to be able to do the tiledb read operations.
---
### Author:  [@joe\_maley](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/joe_maley)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2020, 1:27pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194/2 "2020-06-10T13:27:08Z")
Thanks for the bug report. The following command will print the unix permissions for the ` __lock.tdb` file and each directory leading to it. Please run this in your linux shell and copy the output here. If the `__ lock.tdb` no longer exists, run the command on the path without the filename. This will help me debug the issue and reproduce it on my end. Thanks!
`namei -l /tmp/Rtmpymp9pr/file751663dcef39/CytoTrol_CytoTrol_1.fcs.tile/params/__lock.tdb`
---
### Author:  [@joe\_maley](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/joe_maley)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194/3 "2020-06-10T15:54:58Z")
@mikejiang I’ve submitted a speculative fix for review: [https://github.com/TileDB-Inc/TileDB/pull/1676](https://github.com/TileDB-Inc/TileDB/pull/1676)
The fix should make it into the next minor release, but you can cherry-pick that commit if you’re building from source.
---
### Author:  [@mikejiang](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/mikejiang)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2020, 5:43pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194/4 "2020-06-10T17:43:35Z")
Thanks for the quick fix. I will give it a try.
Here is the output that you asked for
```
namei -l /tmp/Rtmpymp9pr/file751663dcef39/CytoTrol_CytoTrol_1.fcs.tile/params/__lock.tdb
f: /tmp/Rtmpymp9pr/file751663dcef39/CytoTrol_CytoTrol_1.fcs.tile/params/__lock.tdb
drwxr-xr-x root root /
drwxrwxrwt root root tmp
drwx------ wjiang2 wjiang2 Rtmpymp9pr
dr-xr-xr-x wjiang2 wjiang2 file751663dcef39
dr-xr-xr-x wjiang2 wjiang2 CytoTrol_CytoTrol_1.fcs.tile
dr-xr-xr-x wjiang2 wjiang2 params
-r-xr-xr-x wjiang2 wjiang2 __lock.tdb
```
---
### Author:  [@Dirk\_Eddelbuettel](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/Dirk_Eddelbuettel)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194/5 "2020-06-10T17:55:25Z")
Hi Mike,
Joe had you do show the pertinent details. The problem here is the access to the top-level _temporary_ directory created by R, your `/tmp/Rtmpymp9pr` which has mode 0700 meaning only user `wjiang2` can change into it and read it. As you are not `wijiang2` you get an error.
There are two simply ways to mitigate. First, given that the other permissions _within_ the directory were already changed, have `wijiang2` also change the remaining top-level directory. Second, the TileDB array could of course be written in `/tmp/` rather than in a temporary R-session directory. So if there is control over how `CytoTrol_CytoTrol_1.fcs.tile` is written, maybe the path used in the array creation could be changed?
Let us know if we can help some more.
Best regards, Dirk
---
### Author:  [@mikejiang](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/mikejiang)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2020, 6:44pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194/6 "2020-06-10T18:44:46Z")
Sorry about the misleading info I provided in my initial post. I am actually wjiang2, so do have read permission. The error was caught by my coworker initially when I shared one tiledb folder to him where he only has read permission.
So to reproduce his issue, I went ahead write a test case in R and intentionally strip my own write permission by `chmod -R u-w /tmp/Rtmpymp9pr/file751663dcef39`.
But thanks a lot for the response!
---
### Author:  [@Dirk\_Eddelbuettel](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/Dirk_Eddelbuettel)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2020, 6:50pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194/7 "2020-06-10T18:50:58Z")
The issue remains the same:
`drwx------ wjiang2 wjiang2 Rtmpymp9pr`
No group, no world, meaning nobody apart from `wjiang2` can access this. _That is a feature_ of the R temporary directory. I still suspect that you inadvertently started in the wrong corner by _creating a resource you plan to share_ inside of a _by design private_ directory. My preference would be to create the to-be-shared data somewhere else.
Hope this helps, Dirk
---
### Author:  [@joe\_maley](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/joe_maley)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2020, 6:54pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194/8 "2020-06-10T18:54:21Z")
Thanks for sharing Mike – the patch I mentioned earlier should fix your problem. If you do try the patch and still see the issue, please let me know.
---
### Author:  [@mikejiang](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/mikejiang)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2020, 11:20pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194/9 "2020-06-14T23:20:26Z")
Joe,
The problem remains after I pull the latest dev branch.
```
commit b85667a79175556a573cb6c20be44f54728e54c8 (HEAD -> dev, origin/dev, origin/HEAD)
Author: Seth Shelnutt
Date: Thu Jun 11 16:10:58 2020 -0400
...
commit 962def8088d46cdd84961791636b874725014eb2
Author: Joe maley
Date: Wed Jun 10 11:49:25 2020 -0400
Posix VFS lock file permissions
```
Here is the line that triggers the error
` tiledb::Array array(*ctxptr_, (fs::path(uri_) / "params").string(), TILEDB_READ);`
Not sure if there is TILEDB\_READONLY flag that should be used?
For now, I still had to do disable lock in order to read the file.
` cfg["vfs.file.enable_filelocks"] = "false";`
---
### Author:  [@joe\_maley](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/joe_maley)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2020, 12:25pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194/10 "2020-06-15T12:25:30Z")
@mikejiang That’s surprising because I’ve tested it on a read-only array. Either way, I’ve pushed a new branch `jpm/debug-vfs-read-lock` to the repository. It contains a few log statements that will help me debug the issue. Could you pull+build+run this branch and paste the the output here? It should look something like:
```auto
1: [2020-06-15 08:17:36.101] [tiledb] [Process: 16599] [Thread: 16599] [error] [DEBUG filelock_lock] filename: /media/psf/Home/Workspace/TileDB_Ubuntu_1804_Workspace/TileDB3/TileDB/test/tiledb_test/string_dims/__lock.tdb shared: 1
1: [2020-06-15 08:17:36.102] [tiledb] [Process: 16599] [Thread: 16599] [error] [DEBUG filelock_lock] rwx------
1: [2020-06-15 08:17:36.102] [tiledb] [Process: 16599] [Thread: 16599] [error] [DEBUG filelock_lock] fd: 6
```
---
### Author:  [@mikejiang](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/mikejiang)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2020, 5:59pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194/11 "2020-06-16T17:59:54Z")
Never mind, I didn’t set prefix during my last built so I was still using the staled version from /usr/local.
Sorry about such stupid mistake that’s wasting everyone’s time. I swear it won’t happen again.
Anyway, It is all good now.
---
### Author:  [@joe\_maley](https://forum.tiledb.com/u/joe_maley)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2020, 6:29pm UTC](https://forum.tiledb.com/t/how-to-read-a-tiledb-folder-without-write-permission/194/12 "2020-06-16T18:29:14Z")
No problem, thanks for getting back to us. I just wanted to ensure the fix is working. You found a real bug and verified the fix for us, I really appreciate it! Let me know if you have any other questions.